Voter suppression laws are not fair, just, moral or legal
I concur with letter writer Thomas Edwin Frantz’s recent premise that the only consequential examples of voter fraud in the United States are by Republican Party officials.
In several states, despite the absence of any evidence of voter fraud, Republicans have passed laws that restrict the right to vote.
Under the false guise of electoral integrity, Republican governors such as Brian Kemp in Georgia and Ron DeSantis in Florida have signed such measures into law despite the reality that the 2020 general election was one of the most secure in U.S. history, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
Experts both within and external to the government have concluded the election results were valid and without fraud. Countless federal and state judges rendered the same conclusion when called upon in cases where the election results were contested.
Nevertheless, many Republicans continue to reiterate allegations of systemic voter fraud in 2020. This claim, of course, stems from former President Donald Trump, whose “big lie” had devastating consequences to the health and vitality of this democracy, both before the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6 and beyond.
Trump’s claim about the election results was nothing short of an attempted coup to maintain the presidency. One of his own lawyers during the election dispute, Sidney Powell, recently maintained that no reasonable person would accept her bogus claims of election fraud as factual.
Another attorney for Trump during the 2020 election, Rudy Giuliani, also espoused a number of conspiracy theories about the election and is currently being investigated for alleged criminal and fraudulent acts.
A positive thing happened in the 2020 elections, which occurred during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Voter turnout (as measured by the percentage of the voting age population that voted) was the second-highest in the modern era.
The only presidential election with a higher voter turnout was in 1960, which was a close and fascinating contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. In that election, Americans
experienced televised debates between the major party nominees for the first time in history.
It should be noted that the Twenty-Sixth Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1971; accordingly, 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds could not vote in 1960.
Bear in mind, however, that voter turnout in most democracies is typically much higher than in the United States; turnout in the 70th and 80th percentiles is not uncommon in other
countries.
When many states allowed expanded opportunities to vote by mail or even to vote early, the results were clear. More citizens in this democracy participated in the election.
Now Republicans are trying to reduce voter turnout by enacting numerous unnecessary voting restrictions that will have a disparate impact on several groups that traditionally are more inclined to support Democratic Party candidates.
The only fraudulent activities that have taken place are the restrictive laws in question. Advocates of such measures are celebrating the fact they had made voting more cumbersome for the elderly, the poor, racial minorities, college-age students, immigrants and others.
It is my steadfast hope that the laws that have been passed are struck down in courthouses across the American landscape for being in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This would be a significant development in the evolution of American democracy.
After Reconstruction ended, the southern Democratic Party was largely responsible for the Jim Crow era — and the results were appalling. Citizenship in America was determined by race, and human rights were denied to African Americans as well as others.
For Americans during this time, a renaissance has been witnessed in citizen activism. Not only did voter turnout increase in the last presidential election, but it also increased a lot (in percentage terms) in 2018, the last midterm election.
The Republican response to a surge in voting in America is not acceptable, and it is not fair, just, moral or legal. Most Republicans in Congress are either still touting the big lie or are perfectly silent about it.
I have respect for the leadership that people like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney have exhibited. Unfortunately, they are in the vast minority in the current Congress in the Republican conference.
Some are still touting the big lie despite evidence that exists that has nullified the premise. Others are passively reticent to Trump, and their silence may have grave consequences for the world’s oldest democracy.